Nii Lantey Vanderpuye
A group of rampaging hoodlums suspected to be members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) yesterday took to the streets of the Central Business District of Accra and vented their anger on market women and other traders.
The protestors, suspected to be supporters of Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, NDC MP-elect for Odododiodoo Constituency, invaded Makola, UTC and Agbogbloshie, wielding machetes and other dangerous weapons, attacking people suspected to be members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Reports said some persons wearing the campaign T-shirts of the NDC?s Nii Lantey had gone to the market area to attack traders believed to be of Akan extraction on suspicion that they were sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party.
Traders had their goods looted while others were manhandled.
The traders were alleged to have been attacked with machetes and other offensive weapons.
No arrests have so far been made.
Similar mayhem was visited on traders and suspected NPP supporters at the Kantamanto market in Accra in May during the biometric voter registration.
The NPP is challenging the results of the just-ended polls which were declared in favour of the ruling NDC?s candidate, John Dramani Mahama.
NPP supporters had been picketing at the Obra Spot, Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Accra, to register their displeasure over the EC?s declaration of NDC as the winner of the presidential election, raising security concerns.
The supporters on Monday converged on the Nima residence of Nana Akufo-Addo to protest the outcome of the elections.
The NPP thereafter held a series of large gatherings to assure its supporters that the party would contest the results of the polls in court.
However, supporters of both parties had allegedly taken to the streets attacking innocent persons.
At about 3:55pm yesterday, the Director General of Police Operations, COP John Kudalor, who had then returned from patrol duties, said his outfit had barely dispatched men to their normal patrol duties when reports got to the Police Headquarters that violence had erupted in some portions of Accra.
He said when the patrol team got to the Central Business District of Accra, the supposed assailants escaped through the Beach Road.
A chase yielded no results as no one was seen.
He cautioned the miscreants, saying the police would not take such offensive conduct lightly and asked persons with grievances to resort to the appropriate channels to seek redress.
He said the people of Ghana deserved to do their work in peace without fear or intimidation.
Even though post election security has been beefed up, there have been pockets of incidents across the city, raising security concerns.
A high-powered security meeting has since been held at the National Security Headquarters to iron out matters with leaders of both parties in an attempt to restore calm in Accra in particular and the country at large.
BYRocklyn Antonio
